


one foot in hell

by FancifulRivers



Category: The Stand - Stephen King, Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Crossover, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Nonbinary Chara (Undertale), POV Second Person, Suicidal Chara Dreemurr, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Superflu
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-02-23 13:09:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23712037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FancifulRivers/pseuds/FancifulRivers
Summary: Chara feels like the only person left alive. The dreams aren't helping.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 19





	one foot in hell

**Author's Note:**

> I'm alive! I've just had massive writer's block for ages. I hope you like this. ♥

You always were a demon child, weren't you.

The thought eddies through your mind, making you laugh through dry and cracked lips. The stench of decay fills the air, but you barely notice it at this point. You think if you noticed it, you'd probably go mad. Well, madder than you already are. You sit on the front porch swing and rock, the tips of your battered sneakers brushing against the splintered wood. It isn't your porch swing, but you don't think your neighbors are going to mind. Mrs. Fuego is in the backyard, face first into a bed of petunias, and Mr. Fuego is in the living room. He looks like he could be sleeping, but the blood and snot dribbled down his chest say otherwise.

You don't dare look down the road, where your own mother has fallen in the gutter, her purse outflung by one hand, spilling a drift of kleenex and spare change and a half-empty roll of life savers. You don't know where your father is. Somewhere in the house, but you don't want to look. You know he's dead. He has to be dead, or he would have found you by now, dragged you away from the neighbors' porch swing, sneering grim apologies and muttering vague threats in your direction as his fingers bite into the scant meat of your upper arm. You dig your own fingers into your flesh, letting your nails prick you, but it doesn't feel the same. Nothing will again.

The superflu hit fast and the superflu hit hard. It feels like no time at all has passed since your mom first started coughing and sneezing into one of her little embroidered handkerchiefs, but it has to have been at least a week. Surely both your parents didn't die within a week. You swallow hard, your throat dry as a turkey wishbone on Thanksgiving. 

You yourself feel fine. Nary a cough nor sniffle. There are no purple black splotches beneath _your_ chin, no wet, choking sounds coming out of your mouth at night. No, you're _fine_.

_You're fine, Chara, but you always were a monster, weren't you?_

That makes you think of Mt. Ebott and you pause in your desultory porch swinging, letting the toes of your sneakers drag and squeak across the half-rotted porch wood. Mt. Ebott thrusts itself out of the fog, only a few miles away, thick with forest. _Those who go to Mt. Ebott never return_ echoes in your ears, and your mouth turns down for a brief, quivering second.

But maybe that's exactly what you need.

Your father's in the kitchen, splayed out between the table and the stove. He's face down, but you can see a puddle of dried blood on the tiles, fanning out around his head. _Probably broke his nose,_ you think, and a shard of pity stabs through you, just as viciously as the time you backtalked and got a steak knife to one outstretched, trembling palm. He always said he didn't mean to hurt you, but you saw it in his eyes, that beady determination that said _you won't back talk me again_ , and it worked.

You hate that it worked.

You fill a bag with things you might need. A kitchen knife (you tiptoe gingerly across the floor, alert for the slightest twitch, but there's nothing), a few changes of clothes, a map, pulled from a drawer from the desk in the entry way, one filled up with junk mail and spare change and old dinner mints.

"Tomorrow," you say aloud, the sound swelling flatly in the empty room. You twitch, looking behind you, but there's no one there. Your father's still dead. Your mother's still outside.

You still choose to sleep in a neighbor's house that night. They're all sprawled out on the living room floor, but the bedroom is empty and clean, and that's all you care about.

The dreams come again that night. An old, black woman, shucking corn in her rocking chair. Her gaze is sympathetic, but you cringe away from it.

"You got a long, hard road ahead of you," she says. You want to retort _what do you know?_ but you're afraid of the answer. Instead, you draw closer, tentative, your feet bare in the dream and scuffing through the dirt.

"I'm a demon child," you tell her, almost conversationally. She shakes her head, and the sympathy grows, more than you can take.

"You never were, child, but _you_ gotta believe it," she says. "You-"

But then the dream changes, ripped to tatters by a whirlwind, a tornado of epic proportions, and you run, but there's nowhere to run _to_ , just darkness, and _he's_ there, waiting in the tornado, and the breath sobs, thin and ragged, from your lungs, because no matter what you do, you can't bear to see his _face_ -

You jolt upright in your purloined bed, cheeks sticky with tears. Sunlight washes in through the window, dappling the quilt, and your shoulders sag in relief. Just a dream.

When you get up, you can see the mountain through your window. You hurry down, backpack thumping against your shoulders. Death and decay wreathe your nose, but you ignore it, letting the screen door clatter behind you.

Before the superflu, a bus could take you to Mt. Ebott in no time flat. Since that isn't an option, you find a bike. One with training wheels, since you never learned how to ride one, and there's no one to point fingers or make fun of you now.

_Oh, Chara, what are you doing?_

But you know exactly what you're doing. You don't trust the old woman in your dreams, and you're terrified of the other. Everyone you know is dead, and you can't help but feel like maybe it's all your fault, that _you_ brought the curse upon them, _you_ sent the plague among them. _Your_ hands are stained deep, rich red with the blood of your family, your neighbors, your town, _the whole world_ -

"That's crazy, Chara," you mumble to yourself, legs pumping away, beginning to tire from the unaccustomed work.

But was it? Was it really?

_Monsters live under the mountain,_ you remember a teacher's aide saying, furtive, her gaze darting around before the teacher heard her. 

Could monsters catch the superflu?

"Gonna find out!" you croak, a creaky laugh escaping, like an abandoned door swinging in the breeze.

The sun is high overhead by the time you reach Mt. Ebott. You're exhausted, your ass hurts, and you feel like you're about to topple over as you get off the bike, letting it fall to the side of the trail. It doesn't matter anymore. Maybe someone will find it someday, but you know it won't be any time soon. The world's ended.

_You could look for survivors..._ But you know you don't want to do that. You'll probably be seen as a bad omen, anyway, with red eyes- _demon eyes_ \- and at least this way, you're in control of what happens.

It's hard, pulling yourself up the trail. You eat a quick lunch of granola bars and M&M's, washing it down with a bottle of warm Gatorade, and nearly throw it all back up. Somehow you keep it down, through sheer force of will, one hand pressed tightly over your mouth.

You find the hole by chance. In the middle of a clearing, surrounded by rock outcroppings and trees, a hole into nothing looms. A hole into the center of the mountain, the center of the earth. Only blackness meets your curious gaze, as you stand a cautious distance away, trying to peer down it.

_Last chance to turn back,_ you think, but you know you missed that chance before you left your neighbors' house.

"Here goes nothing," you say, and step forward, into nothingness.


End file.
